Stop the Crisis In Sudan

We the undersigned, students and citizens of Canada, draw the attention of the House to the following:

THAT Recent studies conducted by the World Health Organization, Medicines sans Frontieres, the United Nations and the Centre for Disease Control, and the U.S. Department of State, estimate that between 218,499 and 306,130 people have died as a result of the conflict in Darfur, Sudan. In addition, over 1.5 million have been forced from their homes. Witnesses attest to
women and girls being raped, tortured, and murdered by members of the Janjaweed, a Sudanese government-backed militia;
THAT A January, 2005 United Nations report on Darfur stated: International offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide;
THAT Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, called conditions in Darfur a little short of hell on earth;
THAT The United States has labelled the conflict a Genocide;
THAT Representatives of each political Party in the House recently commemorated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camps, where was born the sentiment that Never Again should a people be subjected to genocide;
THAT Eleven years ago, 800,000 were killed in Rwanda, after the world delayed in acting. Canadian Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire who commanded UN troops in Rwanda has said that 44,000 troops with a broadened mandate are required to bring peace to Darfur, Sudan;
THAT Prime Minister Martin spoke to the United Nations on September 22, 2004 outlining the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and the legal right it affords to intervene in a country on the grounds of humanitarian emergency alone when the government of that country is unwilling or unable to protect their people from extreme harm as a result of internal war, repression or state failure;
THAT the North Atlantic Treaty Organization intervened to stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo;
THAT Canadians pride themselves on being international humanitarians and peacekeepers;

THEREFORE, we citizens of Canada, call upon Canada to:
Push the UN and gather international support to broaden the mandate of the African Union to allow for intervention under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, providing multinational resources to the AU to provide a strong peacekeeping presence in the interim.
Provide peacekeepers, training, observers and logistical support to complement AU forces in the region to protect innocents, considering action with willing member states through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or independently by summer 2005 under the concept of Responsibility to Protect.
Push the UN and gather international support to bring civil servants implicated in war crimes to trial in the International Criminal Court to bring perpetrators to justice, upholding the standards of international law.